History, Nature

muddy waters

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All that mud has to go somewhere. We certainly don’t want it here.

After my post on dredging (which was far too long ago, I apologize), I’m attempting a return with some answers to the question several readers put to me: What happens to the mud that is dredged from the canals?

Bear in mind that Venice has dredged its canals many times over the centuries and deposited the mud somewhere it could be useful.  For example, the island of Sacca Sessola was created from 1860-1870 with the mud dredged from the area of Santa Marta during the deepening of the canals of the maritime zone.  And it is far from being the only one.

Sacca Sessola (so named because it was shaped in a way that reminded somebody of the common boat-bailing scoop) first served as a fuel depository facility, then converted in 1914 to house a large hospital dedicated to curing respiratory diseases, particularly tuberculosis.  In 2015 the J.W. Marriott company turned the decrepit remains of the abandoned hospital into a five-star luxury hotel/resort, and renamed the island in its publicity as Isola delle Rose (Island of the Roses).  Venetians continue to call it Sacca Sessola.
Sacca Sessola is easy to identify from afar by its water tower. Like all the hospital islands, it was largely self-sufficient. Apart from the water, it had a stable full of cows, a bakery, laundry, and a lovely church. From the pictures on their website, it appears that the church is now a cocktail bar, or at least a venue for some elegant social event. (Photo: Riccardo Roiter Rigoni)

Small digression: “Sacca” (saca in Venetian) is often used to identify such places, but don’t confuse it with sacco, which means “bag.” A sacca is defined as “an inlet or cove of the sea, lake, river, or more precisely the bottom of an inlet or gulf.  In geography, the accumulation of brackish water, very shallow, that is formed in sandy areas that separate the branches of a delta, from the resurgence of seawater from the subsoil.”  End of digression.

Ludovico Ughi’s map (1729) showed that Venice had plenty of empty spaces where land was later to be applied.  Counterclockwise from top left we see the Sacca di Santa Chiara (just to illustrate what was meant by “sacca”), and the island of Santa Chiara.  Then there is the expansion of the Santa Marta area where the red-circled area of water shown here was filled in for a military parade ground in 1838 by the Austrians, shown below.  At the far right, water ripples where the island of Sant’ Elena now stands.
Santa Marta 1838.  The Austrians need a military parade ground, or Campo di Marte, so let’s wedge one in here.
In 1869 the train station is visible in all its glory; notice that the island of Santa Chiara is still hanging on right next door.
Big doings in 1888.  Dredgings are dumped to form the new “Stazione Marittima,” or maritime terminal, clearly visible in the upper left corner and thereby  (obliterating? incorporating?) the island of Santa Chiara. In the same year, the Giudecca has been elongated by the addition of Sacca Fisola and Sacca San Biagio.  Even though the Austrians departed in 1866, the Campo di Marte on this German map is still labeled “Exerzierzplatz” (exercise place).
In 1913 the area at Santa Marta is now labeled “Ex Campo di Marte” and the lower half of the land is occupied by warehouses. The black lines stretching along the bridge and down to the Stazione Marittima and the waterfront on the Canale di Fusina were railway tracks bringing freight trains directly to the ships.  At the easternmost edge of the city we now see “Isola di Sant’ Elena,” developed in the 1920’s on land that had been built there as another military parade ground.  At least they found a useful second life after the Austrians left.
The Stazione Marittima was enlarged in 1958 by an extension cleverly named Tronchetto.  It does sort of look like an elephant’s trunk.  Less fancifully, it is also known as “Isola Nuova” (new island).

Murano, a natural grouping of lagoon islands, has been amplified with dredgings over the years; if you look at Google Maps (satellite view) you can easily locate Sacca Serenella, a sort of industrial zone to which no tourist would be lured.  Murano has also grown on its northern perimeter by the addition of yet another island, mostly barren at the moment, where the Centro Sportivo San Mattia is located.

Murano.  Sacca Serenella is the lower island, and the upper barren land has only partially been reclaimed by a sports facility that includes state-of-the-art bocce courts.

The cemetery island of San Michele has undergone quite an expansion over the past few years, thanks to dredgings from the city and environs.  Puts a perfect, if slightly queasy, spin on the old “dust to dust” trope.  I wonder if you could specify in your will that you want to be buried in the mud dug up from the canal nearest to your home.

The current island was originally two — San Michele and San Cristoforo. Napoleon decreed the establishment of a municipal cemetery. as opposed to the local graveyards near parish churches.  More space is constantly needed, so keep those dredgings coming.
Two steps, so to speak, from San Michele is a reconstructed barena, painstakingly built up to replace one that the motondoso had completely eroded.  Considering how many motorboats roar past every day, and even more in the summer, I’m not betting that it will not eventually meet the same fate.  To the right is the larger barena created just a few years ago more or less at the same time as the Vento di Venezia marina.  It used to be a lovely stretch of water to row across on the way to the Vignole, but Lord knows we need more barene.

When there is a large quantity of mud to be deposited, it is sprayed from enormous barges through high-powered tubes, specifically to form new barene (marshy islands).  This process was quite a spectacle for a while during the construction of the “Vento di Venezia” marina at the island of the Certosa.

Looking across the recreated barena from the moorings at the Vento di Venezia.
Not visible here are the barely submerged bags of stones that defend the fragile muddy islets from the lashing of the motorboat waves.
The barrier is easier to see in this view.  Lino went exploring among the saltwort (Salicornia europaea).  We often see birds here, sometimes nesting — egret, beccaccia di mare (Haematopus olstralegus), cavaliere d’Italia (Himantopus himantopus).  The random seagull.

Unhappily, sometimes the mud is poison.  I’m not picking on Murano, but canals near the glass furnaces are known to contain arsenic and a few other chemicals not conducive to health.  The sediments along the lagoon edge by the Industrial Zone are loaded with heavy metals — pick your favorite, it will be there.  Sometimes illegal clammers go there at night, sell the clams, they’re sold to restaurants, etc.  You can imagine.

Because the provenance of the mud matters, there is a system by which it is analyzed and classified and, if necessary, treated to render it harmless.  This is more than usually important if it’s being sold to farmers to enrich their fields.  I haven’t researched the system(s), so please don’t ask me.  The point is that they exist.

The mud of Venice.  You probably wouldn’t call it poetic, but it’s just as important as the water.

 

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Nature, Uncategorized

Let it snow

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The country has been lashed for a week by a meteorological monster originating in Siberia, and anybody who had to brave the sub-zero temperatures and 30 mph winds didn’t need to be told that it hadn’t wafted in from the Seychelles.  Up until yesterday there was snow, it seemed, everywhere but here.

Then finally here it was.  I love it, but of course I don’t have to drive in it, or take a train (many were blocked), or do anything other than wrap myself up like Boris Karloff as The Mummy and get out and look at it.

The hardy men — Massimo and Luca — who sell fruit and vegetables from this boat every morning but Sunday had to give in to three days of forced vacation. You think they were enjoying themselves? They told me this morning they’d been worrying about the produce in the storeroom, Maybe they should have bought a few smudgepots, like the citrus growers in Florida.

The next day (today), it was melting.  I hate that part because it’s ugly and because who knows how long it will be before it snows again?  So arrivederci, snow.  At least you’re not turning to ice.

Slush, basically, the stage that happens everywhere. But here we have to take the dreaded Istrian stone into account, which apart from being beautiful and perfectly suited to life in Venice (resistance to compression, freezing and thawing, and salt, primarily), is one of the most slippery substances on earth when wet. Don’t lick the pump handle when the temperature is below freezing, and do not step on Istrian stone when it’s wet. You will not be vertical for long.
While everybody else was thinking about problems caused by the snow, not many spared a thought for the birds. They were living the high life drinking all the snowmelt they could hold. Every little depression in the pavement of the fondamenta in front of the Naval Museum was a veritable trough for the Common Seagulls (Larus ridibundus). Sipping delicately, occasionally biting a little snow, these enchanting little birds are wearing their “wedding garb,” signified by the black feathers on their heads which appear in March.

And while I was enjoying this little festa, I spared a thought for the pigeons yesterday when this water was frozen solid. There had been a few of them dejectedly pecking away at the ice, trying to get at least a few drops out of what they clearly recognized as a shallow puddle which had turned against them. I’m not sure how long they kept at it, it was too cold and windy to stand there watching to see how much time and effort they were going to dedicate to the effort before quitting and going home. Maybe they succumbed to the thirst — there wasn’t one pigeon in the scrum today. But this little interlude made me feel happy. These birds were practically singing “Gaudeamus igitur” as they slurped away at what must have seemed something like a granita, a frozen liquid with a delicate aftertaste of sanidine feldspar.

 

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Nature

true grit

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This is a tiny example of the material which can be found strewn about in ever-larger remnants according to the amount of wind, and the mood it’s in.  If it has come unstuck because of rain, no matter. It will sit there till it becomes dry and the next windwaft will bring it to your door. Or open window.

You might not intuit this, considering all that water around Venice, but this is an extremely dusty city.  Like any reasonable person I hate dusting, so that might explain my objections to the imperceptible but constant zephyrs of scuz.  Everybody outside Venice gets all worked up about the water, but the only thing we’re missing here is the simoom.

A few evenings ago the weather took a sudden turn from the clear and hot to the dark-gray and cold, a maneuver that was neatly accomplished by a blast of wind.  I felt the temperature suddenly drop and a tiny but ominous breeze passed across my over-heated shoulders and neck. Reef the fo’c’sle and belay the cabinboy!  I raced to shut the windward windows but before I could get to them the aforementioned wind had hurtled through the bedroom bearing invisible (I guess) but extremely tangible clouds of Venetian dust, sand, and general grit.

Sorry to ruin the magic, but the romantic city of canals is made of decomposing bricks, crumbling plaster, flaking paint, eroding stone, and disintegrating mortar and stucco, all of which produces everything from powdery dust to assorted chips, granules, motes, particles, and even the occasional scruple.  This medley had been flung across the bedroom floor, chests of drawers, the bed, and — shudder — the pillows.  The books I can ignore, but just passing my hand over the once-crisp top sheet was like stroking a grimy park bench under a desiccated purging-buckthorn tree.  The only positive thing about this is that, by now, it did not surprise me.  I experience more environment-fatigue when the weather’s dry than when the tide is rising.

There is no solution; the stuff comes in even when the windows are latched, just in a smaller amount.  I don’t know that anyone has ever thought of inventing dust-proof windows — maybe they have them in Timbuktu.  If they have, I’m sure they would cost a lot, when you add in shipping and customs costs.  Meanwhile, gnashing my teeth is free.

The bottle cap is just passing through.
Bricks seem dangerously prone to returning to their primal state. That’s why people cover them with plaster. Which also loses its grip.
it may be that the city will have returned to its primordial mud before it sinks beneath the waves. I don’t know how I feel about that, except at least then I wouldn’t have to dust the bed.

 

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Fish

Seppie and friends

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No matter how bundled up these little pixies still may be, they say SPRING to me.

We went shopping this morning. Nothing dramatic, nothing involving jewels or cashmere or lambskin.  Just checking out the fish at the Pescheria this morning, and we struck paydirt twice.

One, we nabbed the first seppie of the season, a moment we’d been waiting for.  They cost more than I’d have wanted to spend (as almost everything does), but we brought them home and Lino is dealing with their destiny as I write.

We couldn’t resist them — or rather, we didn’t resist most of them, except for the bigger one in the foreground, second from left, covered in sticky ink. The young man casually threw it into the paper in his hand along with two of the others, and I said, “I don’t want that one.” He said, “They’re all the same size.” I said, “I don’t care, I don’t want it.” He said, “They’re all the same size.” Lino said, “She doesn’t want it, put it back,” and so he did. What did size have to do with the fact that it was DEMONSTRABLY older — and with fish, that doesn’t mean wiser — than the others? ( And by the way, it was not the same size, it was bigger.) I realize that every hour that passed, the young man would have found it more of a challenge to casually throw it in with somebody else’s order, but I don’t care. We got the good ones.

Two, we ran into two friends of his, which is always what one hopes when wandering the market.  M and C used to work at the Aeronavali with Lino, beginning as boys together (16 years old, more or less).  They did a little catching-up, mainly about wildfowl hunting (M’s passion since boyhood, but he has relinquished his weapons due to increasing bureaucracy), fishing (still at it, like Lino), and some random remarks about nothing.  Nothing is a very large and rich subject, and people can talk about it for quite some time.

I already knew M by name and by occasional sightings; I knew that he had been Lino’s favorite partner when they used to compete on pupparinos in the “interaziendali” races organized between different working groups (a team from the Gazzettino, say, and the ACTV, and other happy bands of working brothers).  “He was a wonderful proviere” (rowing in the bow) — “he had a beautiful stroke, it just lifted the boat up and then I’d carry it forward.”  Perhaps this makes more sense in Italian.  Anyway, the perfect pair.

They also ran into each other out fishing, or at work with whatever catch they brought in to give away.  “I’d have sole,” Lino said, “but M didn’t fish for sole, he went out for shrimp.  So he’d ask me how much I wanted for my sole, and I’d say ‘You’re kidding, right?’  So we’d just trade.  He loved sole.” Today M bought some sole, but it wasn’t for him.  “It’s for my cat,” he said.  “I also got some sardoni for me.”  (Engraulis encrasicolus, or European anchovy).

Lino thought that was funny.  “Give the sardoni to the cat, and you eat the sole!” he said.

“Nah…the cat won’t eat sardoni….”

Seppie ink trickling out from beneath the ice at the neighborhood fish vendor.  It’s like a moment from some horror movie as you approach the closed door, rendered less horrible by its lack of human characteristics.  But this is a tragic waste of precious ink.  Maybe it was the creature’s last attempt at self-defense. Or somebody was just careless with his squashy fingers as he rang up the sale.

M worked “inside” at the airport on the Lido, where construction was going on; Lino worked outside, on repairs and maintenance.  A young widow with a son set her sights on the even younger M, and the two married and have lived peacefully ever after, with the addition of a few daughters.  She was happy for M to be training and racing, which many wives are not. Many a modest racer has been forced to give it up because the wife wants him at home.  “At home,” if I understand Lino’s tone of voice, means something like “chained to the wall.”

C, however, was another case.  No fishing, no hunting; always to be seen with his father for company.  When his father died he latched onto M, and it may not need to be said that he never married.  “But he always said ugly things about M’s wife,” Lino recalled with some distaste.  M is a good guy and there was no known reason for anyone to say anything bad about her, either.  Except maybe (I hypothesized) he might have made a move on her which was rebuffed.  “I’ve thought that for years,” Lino replied.

When Lino left the company after some 37 years of service, C became head of the squad, a promotion that would have gone to Lino, but never mind, there it is.

I’m sure Lino could have told me more, but one can’t be writing Russian novels every day.  It’s enough to get the highlights, which when they concern people you’ve known since you were 16 can be plenty high enough.

An instant later, they were gone. Two instants after that, they were back. Then they were gone. I never knew pigeons could be so fussy.
Spring is now arriving at a brisk trot. Pussy willows at the market.
A very little peach tree beginning to bloom on the vegetable boat. Peaches never seem to be forthcoming, but the flowers are wonderful.

 

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